Top-cited work from North America recognized by IOP Publishing

17 Nov 2023 Michael Banks

This is the first year that IOP has recognised North America, having already published top-cited awards for China and India (courtesy: iStock/Igor-Kutyaev)

Almost 130 articles from researchers in North America have been recognized with a top-cited award for 2023 from IOP Publishing, which publishes Physics World. The papers received over 15400 citations in total and represent the top 1% of the most-cited articles that have been published by IOP Publishing between 2020 and 2022 with corresponding authors from North America.

This is the first year that IOP has recognised North America, having previously published top-cited awards for China and India. The papers were identified using data from Clarivate’s Web of Science database and cover 10 categories including biosciences, machine learning and reviews.

The single most cited paper from the region was the second detection of a neutron star merger by the US-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. The study was published in March 2020 in Astrophysical Journal Letters, which is published by IOP Publishing on behalf of the American Astronomical Society, and has received 795 citations to date.

The analysis indicated that some areas of physics have seen a rapid rise in the number of citations. Citations for papers about machine learning, for example, have grown by 44% in the past five years while citations for papers in energy materials have seen an increase of 23%.

The announcement follows the release of the top-cited papers from China and India for 2023 that have been published by IOP Publishing. Almost 200 articles from China received over 9000 citations with the single most cited paper – concerning a new evaluation of atomics masses – receiving some 260 citations.

The 30 top-cited papers from researchers in India, meanwhile, received a total of over 1600 citations with the highest cited paper – a review on recent advances in carbon nanomaterials as electrochemical biosensors – receiving just over 190 citations.

Peer-review feedback

IOP Publishing has also announced a new initiative to offer peer-reviewers feedback on the reports that they write for the peer-review process.

Rolled out on IOP Publishing-owned journals, when reviewers opt-in for feedback on their peer-review report they will get a score from one to five determined by in-house editors on how useful their report was, with five being outstanding and one representing that the report was not suitable in inform a decision.

Reviewers are sent details that explain the evaluation such as infrmation about the structure and usefulness of the reports.

The launch follows a trial of the programme in three IOP Publishing journals – Engineering Research Express, Environmental Research Letters, and Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion – in which over 85% of reviewers indicated that receiving feedback on their report was useful.

“Reviewers rarely receive feedback from editors about the quality of their reports and to what extent they influenced the editorial decision,” notes Laura Feetham, reviewer engagement manager at IOP Publishing. “Our hope is that this will improve transparency in the peer review system and help early-career researchers to build their peer review skillset.”

Michael Banks is news editor of Physics World magazine

FROM PHYSICSWORLD.COM   24/11/2023